Huntington to host McElroys’ ‘Candlenights’ holiday podcast

By DAVE LAVENDER The Herald-DispatchNovember 10, 2018

HUNTINGTON — These days a Christmas just isn’t a Christmas until all the laughs are lit on the Candlenights.

For the fifth straight year, the brothers McElroy — Justin, Travis and Griffin — are teaming up to bring their popular comedy podcast “My Brother, My Brother and Me” home to be taped in front of a live audience during the holiday season.

Tickets for the special Dec. 22 comedy show at the Jean Carlo Stephenson Auditorium in Huntington’s City Hall go on sale at noon Friday, Nov. 9, at https://candlenights2018.brownpapertickets.com/. Tickets are $30 with a $2 handling fee.

All proceeds from this show go to Big Brothers Big Sisters of South Central West Virginia.

Usually set near the winter solstice, the Candlenights is a made-up holiday that in some ways embodies what “MBMBaM” is truly about — finding your family, whoever they are, and loving them for who they are, said Justin McElroy while explaining the Candlenights origin.

While folks come to share a whole lot of laughs and celebrate the made-up holiday with the McElroy and Smirl families, they are also coming to give in support of several nonprofits in and around the Tri-State.

In 2016, Candlenights raised more than $12,000 for Recovery Point. In 2017, they raised more than $35,000 for Big Brothers Big Sisters of South Central West Virginia through the show and an additional fundraising effort.

Based out of Charleston, that chapter of Big Brothers Big Sisters was reeling in 2017 after a donor in Raleigh County pulled $80,000 in local funding in a protest against the program after it accepted a $20,000 national grant to help staff address LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) issues impacting any of the children in their programs.

The McElroy brothers - Justin (who lives in Huntington), Travis (who lives in Cincinnati) and Griffin (who lives in Austin, Texas) - record the live Candlenights show as a way to give back at the holidays to Huntington as well as a chance to bring their fans from across the country - and even around the world - to Huntington, which they frequently mention on their weekly comedy podcast.

Even in their first year of Candlenights, back in 2014, the “MBMBaM” live taping drew a sold-out crowd of 600 people from 28 states, Canada, Switzerland and the U.K.

“There is little that means more to me than being able to bring people in from all over the world and showing them our home,” said Justin McElroy, the eldest brother and originator of the show that averages more than 5 million downloads a month.

Although the brothers have sold out shows all over the U.S. this year with both “MBMBaM” as well as their other popular podcasts, Candlenights is one of the toughest shows of the year since the annual Christmastime show is a more family-friendly version of the podcast, which dispenses tongue-in-cheek, faux advice as the brothers attempt to solve every question, query and quandary posed by listeners. From ghost horses to Garfield fetishes, no topic is too complex for their insight.

“It is also the most stressful show we do because we’re not allowed to swear,” Justin McElroy said.

He said they are still figuring out which of the McElroy shows will be opening for their flagship podcast “MBMBaM,” which is on its 432nd episode.

In years past, Justin McElroy’s medical-themed comedy podcast, “Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine,” with his wife, Huntington family physician Dr. Sydnee McElroy, has opened the show, and it’s a good bet this year, too, as they have just released “The Sawbones Book: The Hilarious, Horrifying Road to Modern Medicine,” currently No. 8 on the Science Monthly Best Sellers for October on the New York Times Book Review Best Sellers List.

Go online at http://mcelroyshows.com/ for more information about the McElroy shows.